horn

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
7
Words With Friends
7
Letters
4
Pronunciation
/hɔːn/
See all 5 pronunciations
/hɔːn/ · /hɔɹn/ · /ˈhɑːɹˠn/ · /ˈhoːɹˠn/ · /ˈhoːɻn/

Definition of horn

32 senses · 3 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (countable)A hard growth of keratin that protrudes from the top of the head of certain animals, usually paired.
See all 32 definitions

noun

  1. (countable)A hard growth of keratin that protrudes from the top of the head of certain animals, usually paired.
  2. (countable, uncountable)Any similar real or imaginary growth or projection such as the elongated tusk of a narwhal, the eyestalk of a snail, the pointed growth on the nose of a rhinoceros, or the hornlike projection on the head of a demon or similar.
  3. (countable, uncountable)An antler.
  4. (uncountable)The hard substance from which animals' horns are made, sometimes used by man as a material for making various objects.
    “an umbrella with a handle made of horn”
  5. (countable, uncountable)A vessel made from a horn, to contain drink, ink, gunpowder, etc.
    “horns of mead and ale”
    “The one brought out a filled up horn.”
    “I guarantee you a mighty feast, horns of ale, and afterwards wrestling and racing and contests of strength.”
  6. (countable, uncountable)An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil.
    “[W]hile riſing ſlow, / Blank, in the leaden-colour'd eaſt, the moon / Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns.”
  7. (countable, uncountable)An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil.
  8. (countable, uncountable)An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil.
  9. (countable, uncountable)An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil.
  10. (countable, uncountable)An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil.
  11. (countable, uncountable)An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil.
    “Joab […] caught hold on the horns of the altar”
  12. (countable)Any of several musical wind instruments.
  13. (countable)An instrument resembling a musical horn and used to signal others.
    “hunting horn”
  14. (countable)A loud alarm, especially one on a motor vehicle.
  15. (countable, uncountable)A sound signaling the expiration of time.
    “The shot was after the horn and therefore did not count.”
  16. (countable)A conical device used to direct waves.
    “antenna horn”
    “loudspeaker horn”
  17. (countable, informal)Generally, any brass wind instrument.
  18. (countable, slang)A telephone.
    “Get him on the horn so that we can have a discussion about this.”
  19. (countable, slang, uncountable, vulgar, with-definite-article)An erection of the penis.
  20. (countable)A peninsula or projecting tract of land.
    “to navigate around the horn”
    “But nowhere are there queerer waters than in our own parish of Caulds, at the place called the Sker Bay, where between two horns of land a shallow estuary receives the stream of the Sker.”
  21. (countable)A diacritical mark that may be attached to the top right corner of the letters o and u when writing in Vietnamese, thus forming ơ and ư.
  22. (countable, uncountable)An incurved, tapering and pointed appendage found in the flowers of the milkweed (Asclepias).
  23. (countable, uncountable)In naval mine warfare, a projection from the mine shell of some contact mines which, when broken or bent by contact, causes the mine to fire.

verb

  1. (transitive)To assault with the horns.
  2. (transitive)To furnish with horns.
  3. (obsolete, slang, transitive)To cuckold.
  4. (India, Singapore, intransitive)To sound the horn of a motor vehicle; to honk.
    “, His Precious Gem He horned five times but the man didn't moved his car away.”

name

  1. Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America.
    “Sailing around the Horn was an arduous journey for sailing ships.”
  2. The Horn of Africa, a peninsula of Africa which juts into the Arabian Sea.
    “At the same time, it would be erroneous to exaggerate U.S. interests, to overreact to political developments in the Horn, or to adopt imprudent policies based on emotional reactions to Soviet and Cuban involvement.”
    “[…] countries fail to explore the possibilities of producing other crops of high value and demand in the Horn or elsewhere.”
    “The word Somali itself today refers to any inhabitant of Somalia; it also refers to any person of ethnic Somali origin in the Horn or elsewhere.”
    “Although major coups had taken off in the Arab world in Egypt in 1952, this was the first coup in the Horn or indeed in post-independence Africa.”
  3. (countable, uncountable)A surname.
  4. (countable, uncountable)A former civil parish in Rutland, England, abolished in 2016 on the formation of Exton and Horn parish.
  5. (countable, uncountable)An unincorporated community in Dawes County, Nebraska, United States.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

From Middle English horn, horne, from Old English horn, from Proto-West Germanic *horn, from Proto-Germanic *hurną. Compare West Frisian hoarn, Dutch hoorn, Low German Hoorn, horn, German Horn, Danish and…

See full etymology

From Middle English horn, horne, from Old English horn, from Proto-West Germanic *horn, from Proto-Germanic *hurną. Compare West Frisian hoarn, Dutch hoorn, Low German Hoorn, horn, German Horn, Danish and Swedish horn, Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌽 (haurn). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥h₂-nó-m, from *ḱerh₂- (“head, horn”). Compare Breton kern (“horn”), Latin cornū, Ancient Greek κέρας (kéras), Proto-Slavic *sьrna, Old Church Slavonic сьрна (sĭrna, “roedeer”), Hittite [script needed] (surna, “horn”), Persian سر (sar), Sanskrit शृङ्ग (śṛṅga, “horn”). Doublet of corn (“callus”), corno, and cornu. (telephone): From the horn-shaped earpieces of old communication systems that used air tubes.

Anagrams of horn

2 plays · some not in Scrabble

Words you can make from horn

9 playable · top: HON (6 pts)

Best play hon 6 points

3-letter words

3 words

2-letter words

5 words

Hooks

4 extensions · 2 front · 2 back

A single letter you can add to horn to make another valid word.

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